Online Services

Rank AOL amateurs and hard-core propeller heads both are prime customers for the latest iteration of the WinZip file-archiving sofM-Wware, probably the most popular stand-alone utility in the history of Windows computing. WinZip 8.0 starts with a wizard function that will automatically translate photographs attached to e-mail on America Online in the hated MIME format and extract them as .jpg, .gif or .bmp images. Uncounted millions of photographs have been lost to AOL users because the services use of MIME to carry pictures makes them unreadable to a great many, particularly to newcomers to e-mail procedures.

Liz Parella had a big problem. She needed to sell a Baldwin baby grand piano that was taking up too much space in her Manhattan apartment. She got in touch with an antiques dealer, but the dealer offered her only $1,000, far less than what she thought the piano was worth. By chance, Parella, a secretary at a financial management firm, saw a magazine advertisement for an eBay broker service. Although she knew about online auctions, at that point she had never used the Internet. On a whim, she decided to give the broker a call and subsequently entered the online auction market by proxy.

When Steve Case was in college during the late 1970s, one thing was clear: He was a big thinker. Yesterday, he pulled off the biggest business deal in history. Case's America Online Inc. announced that it is buying Time Warner Inc. in a deal valued at $179.1 billion in stock and assumed debt. "He was thoughtful and concerned about society and ethical issues," recalled Mark C. Taylor, a humanities professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, who had Case as a student in his religion course.

DETROIT -- AutoNation Inc., the world's largest automotive retailer, introduced a new online buying service yesterday to capture part of a market forecast to explode from 15,000 vehicle sales this year to 500,000 in 2003.AutoNationDirect.com is now available in the Tampa, Fla., area. Customers can reserve a vehicle for a test drive, withdraw money from their bank for a deposit and complete loan applications online. A nearby dealer would then deliver the vehicle to the customer's home.AutoNation expects to generate $750 million in online sales this year, then double that in each of the next two years, said Steven Berrard, AutoNation's co-chief executive officer with Wayne Huizenga.

The critics are right. The new "Star Wars" movie features wooden acting and bad dialogue. I should know -- I've seen it twice.The critics are also right about 3Com Corp.'s new Palm VII pocket data device. It's too expensive and offers a limited set of features. But 3Com will sell heaps of them, regardless of the critics.I won't shell out the necessary $600 -- 37 times the cost of my two trips to the planet Naboo. I've a reputation for stinginess to maintain, and I'd just as soon wait for the inevitable price drop.

Ravens jerseys for sale online. Webcasts of the coach's news conferences. A virtual fan club, complete with a first shot at tickets. And, of course, a logo for the side of the stadium.The Ravens announced yesterday a $105.5 million, 20-year sponsorship agreement with PSINet, a Herndon, Va.-based computer services company, that both say will revolutionize sports marketing and the way fans interact with their teams."This whole partnership far transcends putting a name on a building," said Ravens owner Art Modell.

NOW SHOWING on a computer near you: White power, skinheads, neo-Nazis and Christian hate groups from Oslo to Utah.Parents who have been wringing their hands over their children's access to smut on the Internet have something else to consider: the easy availability of home pages touting hatred of blacks, Jews, Arabs, immigrants, homosexuals and - in a few cases - white people and cops. The engines of hate are all available within a few clicks of a mouse on the World Wide Web.Ironically, a soft-spoken, 33-year-old Harvard librarian has made the hate pages even easier to find.

THE INTERNET is, at once, fascinating and frightening.Punch up a web site and users can find stuff on just about any subject, including the latest news on comet Hale-Bopp, local and state legislation, movie listings or bus schedules in Atlanta.On the other hand, they can find trash that once was confined to adult book stores. And there's danger -- predators have found victims on line and "Heaven's Gate" cultists found suicide through the web.It is no wonder that the Howard County school board, none of whose members fits the computer-geek profile, is squeamish about the Internet.

THE WOEFUL e-mail-of-the-week comes from my old friend Dudley, who finally decided that this Internet thing was more than a fad and resolved to go online at home.Now Dudley is not a computerphobe -- far from it. He uses a PC at work and home and generally manages quite well. So when he visited a store and saw a package of free disks offering what purported to be an easy way to connect with a regional Internet provider, he decided give it a try.He followed the installation directions but couldn't get the program to run. Actually, that's not exactly accurate.

Angered by a state plan to offer consumers online physician profiles that include disciplinary and malpractice records, Maryland's largest organization of doctors will try today to temporarily derail the project.The program, developed through the Board of Physician Quality Assurance, is set to begin next spring after two years of development. Doctors argue that the information could leave consumers more confused than enlightened. And they are furious at not being informed about the project.